Oh Phudge

The prospective 146-game winning streak has been snapped at five[1], which was inevitable, one supposes. But what a way to go.

Maybe Pelfrey was due to be less than a PELF (Pitcher Everybody'd Like to Find), especially without his de facto personal catcher behind the plate guiding him in for a safe landing. Brian Schneider has been a tonic for Pelfrey and the beeg boy hadn't shaken (or “shaked,” as Wayne Hagin put it) him off all year.

But our PELF (hopefully not reverting to Pitcher Everybody'd Like to Fix) kept us in it enough for matters to get tied on his watch. Once it became 4-4, the game fell apart.

From the moment the playing field had been leveled by Ryan Church's run-scoring single…

• Endy failed (but he never gets to play; besides, he's Endy).

• Marlon failed (though we assume he will eventually stop doing that).

• Delgado continued to do nothing (which is exactly what I'd assume about his near-term contributions).

• Feliciano didn't retire the righty Feliz (but did keep Utley in the Cit, so score one for lefty-lefty thinking).

• Castillo did not bunt successfully (surprised?).

• Wright was robbed (by the wind and Howard).

• Beltran was robbed (by Bruntlett and, to a lesser extent, Howard, who isn't quite as bad a first baseman as we'd like to believe).

Just enough went wrong to send the Mets out of their place[2] for a smoke, hopefully not much longer. We saw two evenly matched teams this weekend. If everybody's at full strength later this season, they'll still be evenly matched. We took two of three there and here, so this Mets-Phillies thing[3] by no means shapes up as a total loss, or even a loss — except for the most recent battle of hits…which kind of takes the edge off the fairly recent successes.

I still feel like throwing something.

Pennants, however, aren't won in April. They also aren't won in September. They're won and lost over 162 games. There's no real point to spouting that morsel of wisdom except perhaps to turn the page toward Chicago.

Where Chase Utley won't be tonight or Tuesday.

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